The RNC Convention has brokered a deal with UStream.TV to serve as its "Official Live Video Streaming Provider."

The Web on the Candidates

MSNBC produced a very cool interactive feature called "Rate the Candidates" to accompany their broadcast of the Democratic presidential debate last night. The Flash voting site has handy sliders that let viewers rate each candidate's performance with a rating of -1, 0, or +1. At 44%, Mike Gravel has the highest number of negative (-1) votes, perhaps as a result of his particularly stormy attack on the war in Iraq ("A law making it a felony to stay there" would be the best way to bring the troops home). Chris Dodd had the somewhat dubious honor of having the most neutral (0) votes, with 51%, and Barack Obama had the highest positive (+1) rating, with 44%. We don't know the total number of people who voted (it's not clear they promoted it at all during the debate), though to submit a response voters must rate every candidate.

Jeff Jarvis was completely frustrated with the way MSNBC handled last night's debate. The debate should be online, Jarvis wrote, so we can actually catch and consider what the candidates were saying, and so we can "download and remix the questions and answers so we can compare and contrast them." While there's a link to the debate on the MSNBC site, there's no video of it anywhere. Jarvis concludes that "It’s painfully clear that NBC doesn’t understand the internet and its role in i[t]."